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Jaguars president Mark Lamping says his threat the team would move wasn’t actually a threat

Last week, Jaguars president Mark Lamping made a not-so-subtle threat that the team would leave Jacksonville if it doesn’t get $1 billion in taxpayer money to renovate the team’s home stadium. Lamping is now trying to say his not-so-subtle threat was not a threat at all.

Via the Jacksonville Business Journal, Lamping “pushed back on the idea that the team is threatening to leave,” and that “viewing [his] comments as a threat to leave Jacksonville isn’t correct.”

It might not be a threat. It might be a promise.

“If there’s a referendum, the ballot question should be: Do you want to keep the NFL in Jacksonville?” Lamping said at a conference in St. Louis, after polling showed that Jacksonville residents don’t have the stomach to devote nine figures of taxpayer funds to the desired upgrades.

“Look, if Jacksonville loses an NFL team, they’re never going to get another one,” Lamping also said last week. “And if the Jaguars have to relocate from Jacksonville, those of us that went down there would have failed. OK? And none of us want to face that.”

If it’s not a threat, it’s a pre-threat. It’s a sign of what may come if the politicians opt to reject both the easy way and the hard way to shake four billion quarters out of the collective couch cushions.

Lamping and the Jags are in a tough spot. If they won’t be getting the money they want without any real effort, it will be time to apply some elbow grease. When it comes to the stadium-financing game, the only real elbow grease is a threat to use those elbows and the rest of the arms to pack bags.